Carrying Beth
by MorSaille
Summary: Daryl and Beth are on their own. There will be walking, there will be talking, and when they get thirsty - there will be lemonade. Introspective. Rated M for graphic tartness in chapter six; ALL of chapter eight is in bed ...and just a little bit of language. I claim no ownership of these characters. Bethyl
1. Chapter 1

***I'm not too sure how this is going to work. This is my first story. I've got more chapters written, but this short bit is to test the water :) If anyone can give me some advice on formatting, or getting up to speed in general, I'd really appreciate it***

She said that she'd never cry again.

Daryl had held her, knowing it was a lie, but one that she needed to believe.

Now they were alone. More alone than Beth has ever been before. It is unsettling, this burden he feels.

He gives her just one more sidelong glance, hoping that she's different this time. _How_ he would change her is another thing. Sturdier, maybe? Less attractive, definitely.

It's a strange land and Beth is a stranger in it. She's young, largely untrained, and so fucking obvious. She's stronger than most, but it's pretty clear that she was meant to be a Biter or bitten by the end of the first year.

Now, in some circles, she is the hunted.

She is currency.

Just having her close makes them both less safe. Should they meet someone on the road the newcomer will likely see Daryl as an obstacle to an easy payday, or a rival. She is his; his burden, his responsibility and his treasure. He's reminded suddenly that she is quite possibly the last surviving member of her family. They're going to have to toughen up if they plan on staying together.

All apocalypses have their Daryls. No burned-out city or blood-stained street is complete without one. They are brooding and rangy. Sometimes he's a mercenary or a rambler; it makes little difference. In this hellscape, he belongs, his existence is expected - mundane, even.  
The story needs Daryls like a sky needs the stars.

The prison is lost.  
With it, everything that meant safety, security and family for the both of them.

She looks back every now and then, to watch the smoke curling above the trees of what had been her home and her future.

Daryl doesn't look back. Not because he doesn't feel it's pull, but because going forward is going to be plenty hard without allowing his focus to drift to what they'd had in the past. The past was behind them now; and he can only hope that the more distance he can put between them and the prison the lighter will be it's pull on him.

They run until they have to walk. Then they walk in silence until the dark causes them to trip over rocks and exposed roots.

It is a warm night, but they can't stop shivering. Back-to-back in the underbrush, Daryl and Beth sit, sharing a small circle of warmth where their broken bodies rest against one another. Today was the worst day that Beth can remember. The adrenaline kept the wave of crushing loss from pulling her under, but that adrenaline has drained away. Now her mind is tallying the dead or missing. She is being slowly gutted by the dawning realization of just how much they've lost tonight - It's hard to breathe, her heart is racing, and still, the tears won't come. There is a tight numbness in her chest and a dry burning behind her eyes.

They sleep like this, jerking awake every few minutes, before any dream has a chance to feel too real.

When the sun rises, they start walking - stiff, sore and damp with the dawn.

The dead and the living have this in common:

They walk. They kill. They eat.

...and oddly enough, they stay together.


	2. Chapter 2

They didn't speak until the third day.  
She'd taken a pine cone and beaned him with it, he'd whipped around to confront her. She stood there. Her face determined and angry, her arms open and at her sides, as if to say, "Come on. What ch'ya gonna do?"

He laughed and pulled her into a hug. "Sorry Sweetheart, it's been a rough week."

"You can say that again."

"I'm sorry, Beth."

They've been moving two or three weeks, finding anything in these trees is nearly impossible, but they haven't given up on finding more of the group.  
It isn't looking good.

The sun was coming up.  
Daryl pulled her closer.

Still asleep, Beth wriggled under his chin and tugged at the edge of his jacket. The small amount of air between them is warm, musky and deliciously _human_.

It's a good day for breakfast, fiddle-heads and a nest of small eggs. By midday they'd met up with paved roads, a burned-out car, and two walkers.

She jokes that they should be keeping track of distance rather than time, that the old rules kind of stopped making sense right around the same time the dead took over.  
"At least most of the roads are still marked, and a map is just easier," She said.

Daryl stopped and looked at the sky before answering. "We've got nothin' but miles ahead of us," he said with a dry, lopsided smile. "Hell, I stopped keeping time a long time ago. I'm not even for sure how old I am anyway. I know I've gone at least a million miles. How far you been, sweetheart?"

"My grandma used to say, 'A gentleman never asks, and a lady never tells.'"

"I'm no gentleman."

"A good thing, too," Beth quipped. "The gentlemen are extinct, but I think you might have a little bit in you."

"Not me. The last of them died with your daddy." Daryl added, sympathetically.

Beth winced. After a few minutes she said, "I'm twenty. The months get lost but Spring happens at the same time every year."  
"Really? You honestly don't know your age?"

He knocked into her gently with his shoulder and kissed her hair. "Don't like cake."

They walked in silence. Beth could hear wind in the trees. With your eyes closed, the world was the same as it ever was. Birds called to each other from behind the leaves and water bubbled somewhere nearby. Beth thought to herself that it would be easy to forget that the world had ended. Even this world was beautiful when the sun was warm on her back.  
Remembering was the hard part, and it happens at night.

Daryl watched the young woman beside him. Her eyes were closed; a delicate and peaceful expression played across her face. "How does she DO that," he growled to himself.

He can't remember the last time that he felt that relaxed. Maybe when he was twenty?  
Nope, not even then. If anything, Daryl at twenty was even more damaged.

He had been a child; two decades old with no sense of responsibility, no honest skills, and no future. He and his friends had gotten drunk that year and taken a bike from a boy no older than nine ...for Daryl's birthday present. They'd spilled a few gallons of paint in an old parking lot and ridden the bike through the mess - skidding and screaming at each other in drunken glee. The memory nauseated him.

Beth wasn't like that. Maybe girls matured faster, maybe a mass extermination goes a long way in forcing one into adulthood; it sure had worked for him. On a side street there was a crow, picking at the face of a dry corpse. It squawked and fluttered lower to investigate the inside of the hollowed torso. Daryl noticed that the graffiti was lighter here. In the next mile or two he figured they should think about finding a place to lock themselves in for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

The house looks promising.

Visibly dilapidated, it is a two-story walk-up with a narrow side entrance, half hidden behind the trees. If they are detected at all, defending themselves will be much easier. The backyard is walled-in, with full sun, fruit trees and a vegetable garden gone feral.

Beth is almost giddy with the anticipation of a bed tonight. They've been sleeping hard since the prison and even though he won't say it out loud, Daryl is looking forward to getting them off the road. He's overdue for a little bit of domesticity and many hours of sleep.

"The dead don't sleep," he thinks.

"Did you say something?" Beth asked.

He must have said it out loud. "The walkers. They don't sleep."

"You're weird."

Daryl was going through the canned goods in the pantry.  
"Remember how they all used to say, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead?'" He asked, with a flourish.  
"Look at 'em now."  
"Dead, and can't get a moment's peace - or even a decent meal."

Beth looked over at him, her eyebrow raised.

He winked at her and tossed a small can of mandarin orange slices.

She nearly yelped, "I LOVE these!"  
Her huge smile found it's match on the face of her companion.

They raided the garden for late-season tomatoes that the snails had missed and a couple of nearly ripe apples. Then they lay in the grass and played Battleship until the sun went down.

*o*o*o*o*

He can feel the dark now, vining through his thoughts, tucked behind his eyes.  
For Daryl, some days are harder than others to feel alive.  
Surrounded by people, life wasn't something that he had to force himself into believing.  
Today, the living are few, and far between.  
Most of the ones left alive are walking around only because they have an ability to shrug off the most admirable traits of humanity.  
Compassion won't stop a walker,  
and when the marauders come for your shelter,  
your self-sacrifice is much appreciated.

Sometimes he's half convinced that the world no longer belongs to the living.  
That the fair and polite thing to do would be to just give up.  
Walk right up to the nearest walker and volunteer for membership in the new world.  
He can see himself as the monster, and his actions as monstrous.  
Then he kicks his own ass, and sets his jaw with grim determination.  
He's been in the woods too long.


	4. Chapter 4

..Beth was running through the forest. It was night.  
She was hopelessly lost and terribly frightened. She could hear the walkers, louder now.

They sounded close enough to touch her, but she couldn't see them, couldn't risk turning around to try. There was a tree ahead of her and Beth felt sure that she could be safe in it's branches. She climbed the tree easily and crouched on a large branch as the walkers gathered under her. She could see them now; eyes glowing in the dark. "They don't sleep," she thought.

..Daryl was calling to her through the trees. Some of her walkers moved from the tree to find him. She yelled to him that there were too many, "Bring weapons!". He came into the clearing. He was unarmed and very nearly undressed. His bare skin made him painfully vulnerable out here. Even from this distance, the brightness of him was visible against the tree line from her perch in the tree. Directly behind him she could make out a pair of red, glowing eyes.

She couldn't look away from him. The red eyes closed as the the thing's teeth sank into the warm, living shoulder of Daryl Dixon.

..she screamed, over and over. Her eyes running a steady flow of hot salt tears. Her streaming face showered the walkers below with an unending torrent. As Daryl slumped into the grass, Beth realized that the tree was sinking. She was sinking into the warm, salty mud that she had made with her tears. Lower and lower; she was slowly nearing the outstretched, rotting hands and gaping, maggoty smiles..

Beth was still crying and clawing violently when she opened her eyes.

Daryl was there, straddling her, with one arm across her shoulders and his other hand over her mouth. He was holding her down and begging in hushed and panicked tones to wake up, to be quiet.

"It's fine, sweetheart. I'm here. We're safe and nothing's going to get 'ya. Not tonight, Baby, not tonight."

When she calmed, he climbed off to her side and wiped the wet hair from her face. As her eyes cleared she noticed that he was bleeding. His face, bare chest and arms were scratched and smeared with fresh blood. Horrified, she asked, "Was that me? I hurt you?"

He ignored her questions and asked instead, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

She shook her head, but asked him to stay. He pulled her in close, against his chest, continuing to smooth her hair - his chin against her temple.

He's saved her life so many times. She thinks about how, in some ways, that makes her belong to him. Beth is his foundling, something he owns by virtue of keeping it safe. It's wrong, but it makes her smile - even as she decides that it would make more sense that they belong to each other. She protects him, too and she feels that she holds a natural claim on him.

Daryl belongs to her. No, that's not good.  
Daryl belongs WITH her. Better.

Well, shit. She should probably let him know. Babysteps, right? Beth stretches up and presses a slow, gentle kiss into his jawline before rolling her back against his chest and pulling the blanket up to her chin.

***The next one starts with a little bit of a recap from Daryl. Right before it gets naughty. Should I put in an asterisk bar or something to quarantine mature content?***


	5. Chapter 5

Beth was breathing loudly in her sleep.

They hadn't been in bed long when he heard her. It was a tortured kind of snuffling that set him on edge. For a few seconds he'd wondered if a single walker or even two, had found them. He should be able to clear them without Beth's help.

The sounds are coming from Beth's room.  
She's having a dream and it sounds like a rough one. He plans to just rub her shoulder until she can move through the nightmare, but as he swings his feet over the edge of the mattress, a blood-curdling scream, his own name.

Daryl is there.

She's still asleep and fighting hard.  
He hopes that he isn't the villian in her dream. He needs her to wake up; and if her eyes open to find she's been captured by the monster...  
He doesn't know how they'd be able to make it through something like that. The possibility that he is the thing that scares Beth in her sleep wounds him, and then Beth, quite literally, wounds him - but he won't let go.

He's got her.

She's awake now, and calm.  
..and apparently dreaming about him?

It's pretty obvious that he wasn't the bad guy, but that level of fear means that he wasn't an effective hero, either. "Overthinking it, man." He pulled her into the safety of his chest.  
They've gotten used to this while sleeping like wild things; always on the run and in the bushes, but something about the bed - this feels different. All of this is strange. This unnecessary closeness is intimacy, not survival, and his body lets him know in no uncertain terms that it can tell the difference. His skin is so sensitive that he can feel her breath, ghosting across the torn skin of his shoulder. His scalp and neck are tingl...

Awww, shit. Beth kissed him right on the tingly part of his neck.

Damn it, this is going to get complicated. He's just going to hold very still for a very long time, maybe a week.

Daryl thinks she's asleep. He puts his arm around her and squeezes experimentally. She sighs drowsily and stretches before contracting into the most comfortable "little-spoon" position Daryl has ever had the priviledge to experience. He could really get used to this. He doesn't think he'll wake her if he just allows his face to rest on her pillow.  
Definitely complicated.

She's the first one to wake. It's late. She doesn't know how long they slept, but if the light coming through the blinds is any measure, it is way past noon.

Daryl is still unconscious. The scratches from last night have crusted over and a bruise over his ribs is coloring up nicely. Beth cringes with remorse. She lets herself admire this man in her bed. There is no denying that he is a fine physical specimen. His skin almost has a gentle glow from the tight muscles, bundled just under the surface. His back is broad and his limbs are long and powerful. In another life, Daryl Dixon could be an athlete, maybe a swimmer.

He has used this body. He has thrown himself into harm's way, time and time again to save them, her and her family, from certain death. He doesn't consider himself a gentleman, but she's seen it. Daryl is kind, moral, forgiving and gentle. She's seen him temper his rage with mercy; and to forget his own needs out of consideration for those in his care. She thinks she might just love this man.  
This gentle-man.

Well, she's bruised and bloodied him, the least she could do now is to feed him.  
Downstairs she finds coffee. Instant coffee packets, but coffee. Dry cereal and peaches round out a perfectly indulgent brunch.

"Thank You. This was so good."

"No, thank YOU. Last night was..." She hesitated, "It was really bad. I needed you and you were there. Thank you."

"This is for last night? Sweetheart... I mean, Beth, I'm always going to be there for you," he said, just a little too quickly.

When he'd said the word 'sweetheart', it was softer and new in his mouth. The cynicism was gone. His gaze was fixed on Beth as if he were trying to read her for directions, but the print was too small.

"I know you will, Daryl." Suddenly shy, she looked down into the coffee grit at the bottom of her mug.

He reached over and cradled her jaw in his hand, so that he could gently stroke her cheek with his thumb. Gooseflesh rose along her arm. Beth looked up at him, her cheeks and lips were pinker and her eyes were wide. He asked her, a giant smile splitting his face,

"How long have you been havin' dreams about me?"

***Thank you for my reviews! They give me happy feet.***


	6. Chapter 6

She's dated before;

Nervous, pretty boys, fumbling around for the right thing to say and who kissed her fast and awkward in dark corners.  
They were always quick to show up and seemed to follow her. Shiny, overheated man-boy-things that disappeared just as quickly. Beth had always had the upper-hand, mostly because she had only ever attached herself to these boys. Her confidence was based on her experience - that she was the decider. She gave permission and she took those permissions away.  
Beth had decided on Daryl, and was curious about how he was going to use his permission, now that she had given it.

Daryl Dixon hadn't been a boy for a very. long. time.

He's looking at her with such depth of devotion that there's an electric warmth - a buzzing somewhere along her spine. Beth is surprised by this new, almost magnetic sensation. He's been in his skin a long time, and the confidence that comes with experience is like a drug to her. Her unshakeable trust in him, coupled with the awareness that he could overpower her at will, is so thrilling that she's beginning to feel lightheaded.  
She feels like a high-diver, standing, with her toes curled around the edge of the board. One jump, and then she'll be able to fly.

Daryl had asked her about how long she'd been dreaming of him.  
If he had meant nightmares, he's been in a couple.

She tried NOT to dream.  
Dreams weren't the happy place where you built happy fantasies and skipped through a happy, happy world.  
Maybe they had been, she thinks. Once, but that was so long ago.

Beth was sure he was asking about the good stuff, day dreams, fantasies.  
With so much walking, the mind will wander as well.

He's held a starring role an several of those.

*******_Here be citrusy __goodness_*******

Just yesterday, when the sun was hot on her back and she could hear the water, she'd pictured them peeling down to sit in the streambed. Beth could almost feel the cool, slippery rocks against the skin of her back as Daryl gently pushed her shoulders backward, pressing her down into the water. He was bathing her, first with his large, beautiful hands and then with his mouth. Beth was lost in a swirl of sensation, it was impossible to tell where the water stopped and Daryl started. Her body was immersed in the stream while his knowing hands coursed along. His lips and tongue added sweeping curls of warmth to the almost musical way this man was playing her body .

Reaching out for an anchor, she captured his head by wrapping her arms around him and driving her fingers into his gritty hair. A soft, throaty growl, almost a purr, rattled in his chest when she pulled him up from where he had been working very hard to memorize every curve of her.  
Then Beth took his roving mouth with her own and used her tongue to tell him her secrets, one by one.  
She lipped his ear and whispered to him as his hands traveled, as lightly as the water currents, down to feel her heat. His long fingers brushed through her curls as a choked moan came from deep in his throat. With Beth's answering gasp, Daryl roughly grabbed her ass and slid her onto his lap, facing him. His mouth was slightly open and his breathing was ragged.

His eyes were deep, dark and hungry - they searched her face, lost, and desperate for rescue.  
His length was pressed against her, her folds draped over the head of him like soft, warm satin.  
Overwhelmed with want, she decided to save them both. She tilted down and forward.

He slid into her and she gave him a little squeeze, a little 'welcome to my body' present. Daryl cursed in surprise and Beth giggled, the tremors spurring a whole string of curses, oaths and endearments. Beth rode him, just like that, in the creek, driving forward around him until she came apart. Her euphoria kept her from maintaining their pace. He held her hips and pounded into her, her own high lasting so much longer than she thought possible, until he reached his own release, pouring himself into her.

He lay back in the water; and with her legs still wrapped around him she finger-combed the road grime from his hair and traced her fingers along the long lines of his body.

*******_end?_*******

He asked her, a giant smile splitting his face, "How long have you been havin' dreams about me?"

She is trapped in his gaze, replaying yesterday's fantasy in her mind.  
He can see it happen.  
A quick intake of breath. Her eyes darken, as do her lips, where a small, smile starts to form.

"On and off, for awhile now," Beth answers.

She places her hand over his, against her throat and slowly brings it to her mouth. She lightly kisses the pad on each of his fingers before putting it right back where it came from, back under the edge of her hair and against her neck, right where Daryl wanted it. He looks at her, this supple, golden treasure, asking to be his.

His eyes widen with disbelief; but desire is there, too, threatening to creep in at the edges of his vision.  
"Are you sure you want this, sweetheart?"

Beth takes a step forward. One step is all it takes. With his hand where it is, he could stop her.  
He doesn't.

She slides her mouth against his lower lip before pressing him deeply with both of her own. He slides his fingers more deeply into her hair and tightens his grip as his mouth opens to her. Daryl's tongue is at the edge of his teeth, waiting there, to invite her in. She pulls away from his lips to bury her face in the hair at his neck. His scent is his signature, and she wants to learn it by heart.

She fills her lungs with a deep breath of him. Her tongue flits across his pulse-point, tasting his skin, and returns to his lips; to greet his impatient tongue.

Everything about this is so much more than she expected. The solidness of him, his heat and power are driving electric waves of desire along her nerves. At the base of her spine, a glowing mass of pleasure begins to make itself known, like an itch in her mind.  
This is all so new and it seems to be coming from Daryl.

His kiss is potent; she'll give him that.

Daryl was exploring the textures inside her mouth when her legs collapsed. With no apparent effort, and almost as if he had expected this reaction, he pulled her up and into his arms.  
He carried her upstairs,  
back to his room,  
and laid her among the many pillows put there by the home's former resident.

***o*o*o*o*o***

He is keeping her, but he can't have her falling over in a fight, or fainting mid-run. As _painful_ as it is, the only responsible course is to stay a little longer at the house. Just until poor Beth can handle being near him.

And until she can, they'll be spending lots of time together

***This feels like a stopping point. I want to keep it fun and would hate for our wild man to go too house-cat. Lemme think on it.***


	7. Chapter 7

"You ready for some fun?" He asked.

Beth was flushed and fierce, squirming against the pile of pillows. His words sent a tiny flash of alarm through her.

He winked, and said, "Not like that, Sweetheart. Slow down, you're gonna love this."

He peeled off his shirt and gave her a little flex. His smile was so soft and warm, it would have been perfectly at home on the face of a sleeping child. She couldn't help but relax into his smile and giggle a little.

He looked into her eyes and said, "I'm going to be needing your britches. ...and your top."

Beth watched him warily, as she took the hem of her shirt, only losing eye contact when the fabric passed over her face.

He gently held her gaze, his head cocked slightly to the side. Daryl hadn't explored this new terrain, even with his eyes, but he said, with heart-breaking authenticity, "You are beautiful, Beth." He held out his hand to her, "Can you stand?"

She took his hand and rose, wrapping her arms around his neck. His hissing intake of breath stopped her.

"Are you alright?"

"Sweetheart, I am more than alright. I just want to take it easy - no need to go speeding into something you're not ready for."

"I am SO ready!" She whined. "Daryl, I'm yours. I want to always be yours."

"I'm serious too! We've got all the time in the world, Beth, and I want to spend it with you. Now gimme your goddamn pants, Woman!" He said, with a wicked grin.

She unbuttoned her jeans. Then she shimmied them down to the lowest edge of her hips and turned around to crawl very, very slowly back up the bed. She was like a leopard, with it's smooth, sinewy movements. While he watched, she flipped over onto her back, playfully and challenged him with her expression to come after her.

He grabbed the loose edge of her jeans and swept them off, turning the legs inside out in the process. Now in just her underthings, she waited for him to make his next move. She didn't have to wait long. Daryl stalked up the bed after her, on all fours. Truth be told, he played a much more convincing predator. Coming up alongside her, he rested on his elbow and finally took in the vision that was Beth.

She caught him blushing and her heart did a full somersault.

He whispered into her ear, "Flip over."

Daryl started with the arm closest to him. He kneaded the small, tight muscles that he found there. When they were smooth and pliable he moved across her shoulders and up into her neck. The other arm was next.

She could feel her body loosen, the fear and anger that she had been steeped in lately seemed to leave her body.

The ticklishness of the muscles in her thighs was almost dangerous for Daryl, but he worked those to a buttery softness, too. When he released her ankle, she was pretty sure that it was over, but he picked up a small tub of something from the bedside table. She was too relaxed to pay attention as he smoothed a small amount between his palms and started on her feet.

No one, no male person, had ever touched her feet.

It was wonderful. Beth promises herself that she is going to treat Daryl's body to this same kind attention, and at least fifty more varieties of pleasure, but her eyelids are heavy and her body feels like it's being pressed by a warm, sleepy shadow.

"Hey, Dixon!" She barked, her voice heavy with sleep, "Gimme your goddamn pants."

He kicked off his cargo pants and rubbed the lotion into his hands before sliding back up the bed. She threw her arm over him so that she was resting her chest against his. She bent down to kiss him, almost familiar, definitely full of affection, it felt like love.

"Thank you, Daryl."

"How do you feel?"

"I'll show you in ten minutes," she mumbled into the skin over his heart where her face is smushed, awkwardly.

He brushed slow circles over her back as she drifted into a cat nap.


	8. Chapter 8

***Almost all of this part is lemony, like a soft & gooey lemon meringue pie, there is a clean bit at the end - I'll put in another break there to make it easy to find* **

At some point, Daryl followed her into sleep.

He woke to the most delightful sensation - Beth's hair. There was something over his eyes, but when he reached up to take it away, she swatted him.

"Beth? What is this? Is this your bra?"

From the foot of the bed he heard her snicker. He heard water. She lifted his foot and wrapped the washcloth around his instep. The cloth then slid between and over his toes. Beth rested his foot against her bare sternum while she rinsed and wrung out the cloth. When she finished both feet she made him curse by licking right up the sole of his foot and pulling his second toe into her mouth and sucking it gently.

The scent of Beth was almost overwhelming in the little bra-tent she'd created. He could feel his excitement becoming more obvious. So obvious, in fact, that she stopped what she was doing with his toes and crawled up his body and straddled his groin. With just his boxer-briefs and her panties between them, the moist heat of her was achingly wonderful. Daryl could hear her aroused breathiness. Not knowing how much experience she's had with men in his condition, there was still no way that she'd be able to ignore the state of him. She made a soft, circular movement with her hips and he wondered if _she_ might just be too much for _him_.

Beth lifted his hands and put them on her breasts. She felt him make a small, involuntary thrust upward. There was a metallic clang and a sloshing sound that could only be the bowl of water falling to the floor.

"Oops," she smiled covering her mouth and rolling her eyes upward, mischievously.

She sat down on him a little more firmly and then reached forward to take the bra from his face. His stunned expression was so beautiful. She wanted to remember this always, the moment that she was sure that Daryl Dixon was in love with her.

She was an Angel. Beth was lit from behind and looking down at him with such amused benevolence. Her skin was warm, polished ivory - rare and forbidden. He hadn't wanted to push her, to do anything with her that might make her feel used; but _this_ Beth, this gorgeous creature of his was driving like she knew the road. Maybe she just knew him.

Daryl sat up and released her breasts. Then he wrapped her legs around him and took her mouth. He was dizzy with the girl. She kissed him like she was drowning and he was her air. He held her tightly against him while she nuzzled his neck and ears.

She whispered, "Please. Daryl, please."

He shook his head to clear it and took her head in both his hands. Holding her forehead against his. "Baby, there's nothin' I won't do for you. Just tell me you're ready."

"So ready. Daryl, I need you so badly it hurts," she choked out breathlessly.

He kissed her again, her lips were puffy and heated. Daryl eased her back down to the mattress between his legs and tasted her tender, pink nipples before moving down her belly. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her powder blue panties and looked up to see her watching his progress. Removing them was one of the easiest things he'd ever done. The light brown curls were soft against his fingers as he ran his fingers through them. She twitched her hips impatiently and whimpered his name. He rubbed his fingers against her until she opened against them. With just one finger he stroked, dipping into her, only shallowly.

He smiled up at her before sticking out just the tip of his tongue. She nodded, too overcome with desire to be nervous. Daryl rested his tongue against her firm, round nub. The taste of her was unique. Beth was sweet and fragrant, like honey or apples, but with an almost lemony flavor that he finds irresistible. Slow, light circles and his finger slides deeper. Like under-ripe strawberries...

"Daryl?"

He pops up and it almost makes her giggle.

Shyly, she says, "I want to feel you."

His heart.  
He is demolished, and he can deny her nothing.

He removes the last of the barriers between them. Beth can't look away. She takes him in her hands and strokes gently down. She wraps her tongue around him and kisses the impossibly soft skin of Daryl Dixon.

"Lie back," she says.

With her hands on either side of his head, her hair falls forward around them. She's so wet that drops of moisture have collected in her curls. She holds him with one hand and slides around him, bathing him with her dew. The size of him is daunting.

Her face is tight with concentration and equal parts pain and pleasure. He grabs her hips and holds her very still.

She's a cold beer on a hot day. She's like flying down the highway, invincible and untouchable. Beth feels like Heaven, but he won't let himself ignore her pain, "Beth. Don't. You're hurting."

"I'm fine," she says, but her voice sounds strained.

"You are amazing, but sweetheart, I know an easier way."

She allows him to roll her into their sleepy spoons position. He lifts her top leg and pulls it over his hip. Daryl holds himself against her opening, folded in her warmth. Beth rubs back against him, and he slides just a tiny bit deeper. The pressure is just perfect and her relieved laugh makes him smile against her neck where he peppers her with ecstatic kisses and nibbles.

He makes slow shallow thrusts and she wiggles side to side. She takes him in, a little bit at a time until every inch of him is sliding into her. Spiraling through her in the most intimate and delicious way possible.

His slick fingers are playing too, sliding against the sides of her clit at the front in time with the thrusts from behind.

Every way that she moves now only increases her pleasure. "Daryl!"

"Yeah, Love. I've got ya. Go ahead," he growls roughly, into her hair.

Beth drives back, harder against him, feeling him slam against the soft wall inside her again and again. There was a crack of brightness, like lightning, behind her eyes. She swears she can even smell clean, white snow. Her body stills as her mind floats in the all-encompassing high of her first full orgasm. She holds her breath and feels her body contract and spasm with each pulse.

Daryl was shaking now, holding back; but as Beth tightened around him, he lost all control and with one last deep thrust he held them together as he pumped wave after wave into her. His head was thrown back and his mouth in an open, silent scream of consummate bliss.

There are no words, so he holds her; wrapped tightly in his arms.

***Line of cleanliness***

Back in the kitchen, still glowing from the adventures had upstairs, they sat with their legs touching.

She asks him, "Daryl? What if we get pregnant?"

The look on his face tells her that not only has he considered this, he kind of likes the idea.

"It's the apocalypse, Beth. Worse things could happen," he winked. "You'd skip periods for a year and get a free human."

She looked doubtful. "Maybe it's just not having Dad, and after what happened with Lori... It's a scary thought."

"Oh, Baby. I'm sorry," he said, rubbing her thigh. "We'll be more careful. We'll pick up some things as soon as we get out of here. There may even be a few drawers we overlooked upstairs."

She smiles, so grateful to be so understood, so easily.

"Until then?"

"We take turns.  
...Hey, Beth?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

***To keep Daryl wild, I'll have to turn Beth (wild, not walker). Can you imagine a whirling, blonde hellcat? I think he deserves a partner who can hold her own in the streets as well as the sheets***

***Marking it "Complete" for now. Writing training/action is going to be a little bit of an undertaking. Please review? Thanks***


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